I have a Sony Bravia KDL-52W5500 and I recently started to use Serviio 1.4.1.2 to stream movies and series to it. When doing this, I have used the default detected profile "Sony Bravia 2009".

I have had quite a few problems with this, all easy to solve by editing the profile, but not so easy to know for a first time user (like myself). After some research I have managed to get everything working on my TV, and I just thought I should report my findings here, either so that the profile gets updated, or so that others who search google like I did can find a solution in this post. All issues I mention happens in the unedited profile which comes with Serviio 1.4.1.2.

1. The screen is black (no image) but the audio is working just fine. Some videos work, while others don't.Reason & solution: The TV can not show videos in non-standard aspect ratio. This seems to be known to Serviio devs, but nothing has been done about it. The solution is to forcefully transcode all files. You can do this by editing the profile like so: In the video transcoding section you will see Matches container="mp4". Switch that to Matches container="*". Afterwards, remove the "vCodec" reference (don't put * here too, or Serviio will refuse to start). By doing this, you will loose some quality, as ALL files will be transcoded, but you will have no more black screens (as transcoded files will have a standard aspect ratio).

2. HD videos stutters in scenes with many details (forests, action scenes..). This is the case also after forcing transcode as in point 1. It has nothing to do with internet speed, or the servers processor.Reason & solution: There seem to be something wrong with this TV that does not directly translate to high bitrate alone. In the Serviio profile you can find the line maxVBitrate and notice how it is put to 17000. I tried lowering this as far as 5000 but the stuttering did not go away despite the image looking terrible. I found out (from Serviios Sony Bravia FAQ) that you need to insert another parameter in the profile like so: maxHeight="720". Then combine that with maxVBitrate="12000". You will loose additional quality from this but, combined with point 1, nothing should stutter anymore (because everything gets transcoded by these limitations). Make sure to also change the values under <OnlineTranscoding>.

3. If audio in the video has 6 channels (5.1) or more, the audio sounds terrible. Sound effects gets a bit drowned out and the sound generally has an "underwater feel", and everything is a bit muffled. This does not happen with 2 channels (stereo 2.0).Reason & solution: The sound is overly compressed. The Serviio profile comes with this: aBitrate="192" which limits the audio bitrate of the transcode to 192kbps. This is fine for 2 channels (the bitrate is enough), but not for 6 channels or more. The solution is to switch this to aBitrate="384". This fixes it, with no side effects.

4. HD videos stutters in scenes with many details even with 1 & 2 applied ONLY when external subtitles are used.Reason & solution: Well, this had me baffled for a while, until I found out the cause. Turns out Serviio needs another part in its profile, which is missing entirely from the Bravia 2009 section. The part is: <HardSubsTranscoding>. It works the same as the <Transcoding> section and you can basically just copy that section over here. If you have problems with this, try to see how other profiles are doing this. It isn't so hard. Everything works fine after this. Basically, since this part is missing, Serviio falls back to the "Sony Bravia 2010" profile for how to encode the movie with subtitles, which is basically the same, but without the limitations imposed here by 2. Hence, the stutter returned.

I hope this helps someone.

[edit]Here is the profile I'm using currently (which addresses all 4 points I brought up).

It's an amateur work with only some copy/paste and I'm sure others here could improve this profile, but to watch all movies/series on this TV, this works.Some notes about this profile:- It transcodes ALL videos (even those who didn't really need to be transcoded). Maybe there is a way around this, but I haven't found it if so.- Maybe it is possible to increase the max video bitrate a bit, as long as the height is locked to max 720, while still avoiding stutters. I have not experimented much with this (but at least, with 12000 max, the tv does not get overly unresponsive).- Maybe it is possible to increase the max bitrate of the audio a bit more. I have not experimented with this. For 6 channels, 384 is enough, but if you try more channels, the problem will most likely return. I don't know how much audio bitrate this tv can handle.- I have noticed that there are no <Audio> section either in the Bravia 2009 profile. I'm guessing this means that for audio transcoding, it will fallback to the Bravia 2010 profile. I don't know if this is a good idea or not, because I only use Serviio for video things, and so I have not tried this at all. I'm guessing it would be a good idea for someone more knowledgeable to address this. Same goes for pictures. There are no sections in the 2009 profile for this either.

Last edited by d2freak on Sun Sep 14, 2014 8:27 am, edited 3 times in total.